Travel to The Past: Reading The Sea of Monsters
by Wisegirl2003
Summary: This is the sequel to my first story, Travel to The Past: Reading The Lightning Thief. If you haven't read that story I'd suggest you read it first. The story didn't end when the lightning thief did. The gods, demigods, and now one satyr are once again ready to sit down and read the book that tells them about a heroes past. R
1. My Best Friends Wedding Dress

**Hey, sorry for not posting this for a while. Things got kind of hectic and I didn't have time to finish this. I'd just like to state that Percy will not be coming for a while but he ****WILL ****be coming. On the last chapter of every book a new character will come in and I'm almost certain that Percy won't come in until at least the Heroes of Olympus series.**

**I do not own PJO or HoO. They both belong to the seriously talented Rick Riordan.**

**"My Best Friend Shops for a Wedding Dress." **Grover reads.

Aphrodite squeals as everyone turns to look at Annabeth.

"Annabeth..?" Athena asks uncertainly. "I KNEW IT!" Aphrodite shouts. "I KNEW YOU LOVED HIM!"

Annabeth is beat red and is only able to squeak out what she means to sound like 'It wasn't me' but it really sounds like "Eeeeek."

Grover's not saying a word as Annabeth composes herself knowing that it will only be a second until all eyes turn to him.

"It wasn't me." Annabeth tries again and this time she is heard. Everyone stops what they were doing and looks at her weirdly. "I may be one of Percy's friends, maybe one of his closest friends, but I'm not his best friend."

Everyone thinks about that for a minute. "Burt if it isn't you," Piper starts. "Then it must be…" all eyes turn to a blushing Grover.

"GROVER!?" Everyone shouts and he continues to blush.

**My nightmare started like this.**

**I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned.**

"Florida," Apollo and Hermes sigh, high fiving each other before getting wacked on the back of the head by Artemis.

_**Florida, **_**I thought. Though I wasn't sure how I knew that. I'd never been to Florida.**

**Then I heard hooves clattering against the pavement. I turned and saw my friend Grover running for his life.**

**Yeah, I said **_**hooves.**_

**Grover is a satyr. From the waist up, he looks like a typical gangly teenager with a peach-fuzz goatee and a bad case of acne. **

"I don't have acne." Grover huffs.

"You might not now, but you sure did then goat-boy." Annabeth laughs.

**He walks with a strange limp, but unless you happen to catch him without his pants on (which I don't recommend),** **you'd never know there was anything un-human about him. Baggy jeans and fake feet hide the fact that he's got furry hindquarters and hooves.**

**Grover had been my best friend in sixth grade. He'd gone on this adventure with me and a girl named Annabeth to save the world, but I hadn't seen him since last July, when he set off alone on a dangerous quest—a quest no satyr had ever returned from.**

"But obviously you did return seeing as you're sitting here right now." Piper reasons, but Grover makes a gesture over his mouth that means _'My lips are sealed.'_

**Anyway, in my dream, Grover was hauling goat tail, holding his human shoes in his hands the way he does when he needs to move fast. He clopped past the little tourist shops and surfboard rental places. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground.**

**Grover was terrified of something behind him. He must've just come from the beach. Wet sand was caked in his fur. He'd escaped from somewhere. He was trying to get away from ... something.**

"Whatever he's running away from better not screw up Florida. That's my favorite place to visit." Apollo groans and Artemis rolls her eyes. "You only like Florida because you get to see girls in their bikinis."

"So?"

**A bone-rattling growl cut through the storm. Behind Grover, at the far end of the block, a shadowy figure loomed. It swatted aside a street lamp, which burst in a shower of sparks.**

**Grover stumbled, whimpering in fear. He muttered to himself, **_**Have to get away. Have to warn them!**_

"Warn who about what?" Leo asks looking straight at Annabeth and Grover. The two of them just look at him like _you really expect us to answer?_

**I couldn't see what was chasing him, but I could hear it muttering and cursing. The ground shook as it got closer. Grover dashed around a street corner and faltered. He'd run into a dead-end courtyard full of shops. No time to back up. The nearest door had been blown open by the storm. The sign above the darkened display window read: ST. AUGUSTINE BRIDAL BOUTIQUE.**

**Grover dashed inside. He dove behind a rack of wedding dresses.**

**The monster's shadow passed in front of the shop. I could smell the thing—a sickening combination of wet sheep wool and rotten meat and that weird sour body odor only monsters can have, like a skunk that's been living off Mexican food.**

Grover and Annabeth think about it for a minute before nodding. "That pretty much sums up the smell."

**Grover trembled behind the wedding dresses. The monster's shadow passed on.**

**Silence except for the rain. Grover took a deep breath. Maybe the thing was gone.**

**Then lightning flashed. The entire front of the store exploded, and a monstrous voice bellowed: "MIIIIINE!"**

**I sat bolt upright, shivering in my bed.**

**There was no storm. No monster.**

"And it was all a dream" Apollo and Hermes sigh.

**Morning sunlight filtered through my bedroom window.**

**I thought I saw a shadow flicker across the glass—a humanlike shape. **

**But then there was a knock on my bed room door—my mom called: "Percy, you're going to be late"—and the shadow at the window disappeared.**

**It must've been my imagination. A fifth-story window with a rickety old fire escape ... there couldn't have been anyone out there.**

"Yeah, nobody sane." Grover points out and everyone except for him and Annabeth looks confused at that.

**"Come on, dear," my mother called again. "Last day of school. You should be excited! You've almost made it!"**

**"Coming," I managed.**

**I felt under my pillow. My fingers closed reassuringly around the ballpoint pen I always slept with. I brought it out, studied the Ancient Greek writing engraved on the side: **_**Anaklusmos. **_**Riptide.**

**I thought about uncapping it, but something held me back. I hadn't used Riptide for so long….**

**Besides, my mom had made me promise not to use deadly weapons in the apartment after I'd swung a javelin the wrong way and taken out her china cabinet. I put Anaklusmos on my nightstand and dragged myself out of bed.**

"That sounds like an understandable reason to ban weapons." Hera says earning some glares.

**I got dressed as quickly as I could. I tried not to think about my nightmare or monsters or the shadow at my window.**

_**Have to get away. Have to warn them!**_

**What had Grover meant?**

"That's what we want to find out." Jason says looking at the two who still won't answer.

**I made a three-fingered claw over my heart and pushed outward—an ancient gesture Grover had once taught me for warding off evil.**

**The dream couldn't have been real.**

**Last day of school. My mom was right, I should have been excited. For the first time in my life, I'd almost made it an entire year without getting expelled. No weird accidents. No fights in the classroom. No teachers turning into monsters and trying to kill me with poisoned cafeteria food or exploding homework. **

"I highly doubt any of that exploding homework would ever happen." Demeter says pointedly.

"You never know. There's some demigod in Elysium who died because someone wrote magic in it and he spoke it aloud." Hades says earning strange looks from everyone in the room.

**Tomorrow, I'd be on my way to my favorite place in the world—Camp Half-Blood.**

**Only one more day to go. Surely even I couldn't mess that up.**

Annabeth shakes her head and Poseidon smiles. "Almost a whole year without getting expelled." He sighs.

"I hate to break it to you but Percy attracts danger. If anyone is able to mess up this day and get expelled its Percy." Annabeth says to Poseidon and his smile slowly deflates.

**As usual, I didn't have a clue how wrong I was.**

"See."

**My mom made blue waffles and blue eggs for breakfast. She's funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.**

Grover snorts. "It'd take a big miracle for Percy to not get into trouble."

**I ate at the kitchen table while my mom washed dishes. She was dressed in her work uniform—a starry blue skirt and a red-and-white striped blouse she wore to sell candy at Sweet on America. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.**

**The waffles tasted great, but I guess I wasn't digging in like I usually did. My mom looked over and frowned. "Percy, are you all right?"**

**"Yeah ... fine."**

"Percy shouldn't lie. He can trust his mother." Hestia smiles at the group.

"Percy really can't lie anyways so Sally will figure it out any second now." Annabeth replies.

**But she could always tell when something was bothering me. **

"That and he sucks at lying." Grover adds.

**She dried her hands and sat down across from me. "School, or ..."**

**She didn't need to finish. I knew what she was asking.**

**"I think Grover's in trouble," I said, and I told her about my dream.**

**She pursed her lips. We didn't talk much about the **_**other **_**part of my life. We tried to live as normally as possible, but my mom knew all about Grover.**

**"I wouldn't be too worried, dear," she said. "Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem, I'm sure we would've heard from ... from camp..." Her shoulders tensed as she said the word **_**camp.**_

"What's going on at camp?" Zeus asks worriedly seeing as Thalia's pine is at camp.

"If all the campers die am I out of my contract?" Dionysus asks looking a little eager. His eagerness slowly dies though when he sees all the gods with kids glaring at him.

**"What is it?" I asked.**

**"Nothing," she said. "I'll tell you what. This afternoon we'll celebrate the end of school. I'll take you and Tyson to Rockefeller Center—to that skateboard shop you like."**

**Oh, man, that was tempting. We were always struggling with money. Between my mom's night classes and my private school tuition, we could never afford to do special stuff like shop for a skateboard. But something in her voice bothered me.**

**"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought we were packing me up for camp tonight."**

**She twisted her dishrag. "Ah, dear, about that ... I got a message from Chiron last night."**

"That can't be good." Hephaestus says curiously.

**My heart sank. Chiron was the activities director at Camp Half-Blood. He wouldn't contact us unless something serious was going on. "What did he say?"**

**"He thinks ... it might not be safe for you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone."**

_**"Postpone? **_**Mom, how could it not be **_**safe**_**? I'm a half-blood! It's like the only safe place on earth for me!"**

Jason opens his mouth to object but Piper playfully whacks him on the head. "Shut up sparky, as if a few months ago Roman's didn't exist to us."

Jason just nods his head and smiles at her before taking hold of her hand and interlacing his fingers with hers, earning a tiny squeal from Aphrodite.

**"Usually, dear. But with the problems they're having—"**

**"**_**What **_**problems?"**

"Do they involve fighting?" Ares perks up.

**"Percy ... I'm very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can't explain it all now. I'm not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly."**

**My mind was reeling. How could I **_**not **_**go to camp? I wanted to ask a million questions, but just then the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.**

**My mom looked almost relieved. "Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson will be waiting."**

Annabeth smiles at the mention of Tyson.

**"But—"**

**"Percy, we'll talk this afternoon. Go on to school."**

**That was the last thing I wanted to do, but my mom had this fragile look in her eyes—a kind of warning, like if I pushed her too hard she'd start to cry. **

**Besides, she was right about my friend Tyson. I had to meet him at the subway station on time or he'd get upset. He was scared of traveling underground alone.**

**I gathered up my stuff, but I stopped in the doorway. "Mom, this problem at camp. Does it... could it have anything to do with my dream about Grover?"**

Everyone looks at Annabeth and Grover to see that the two of them are absentmindedly nodding their heads.

**She wouldn't meet my eyes. "We'll talk this afternoon, dear. I'll explain ... as much as I can."**

**Reluctantly, I told her good-bye. I jogged downstairs to catch the Number Two train.**

**I didn't know it at the time, but my mom and I would never get to have our afternoon talk.**

**In fact, I wouldn't be seeing home for a long, long time.**

**As I stepped outside, I glanced at the brownstone building across the street. Just for a second I saw a dark shape in the morning sunlight—a human silhouette against the brick wall, a shadow that belonged to no one.**

"More like Nobody." Grover snickers and Annabeth doubles over laughing.

Everyone stares at them wondering what's up with them while they high five each other.

"Oh, good times." Grover says when he regains his breath. "Remind me again what your definition of good times is?" Annabeth asks.

"Well, old times then."

**Then it rippled and vanished.**

"So who's next?" Grover asks holding up the book.

"That would be me." Zeus says while he takes the book and starts to read.

**Okay guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I'm going to start doing the PJO/HoO questions once again so here's this chapter's.**

**Who or what posses Jason, Leo, and Percy on the Argo 2?**

**First one to answer that correctly gets the next chapter dedicated to them. Bye, and remember to have a super, kick buttin', awesome day.**


	2. The Worst Game of Dogeball Ever!

**... (Pulls up random blanket and uses it as a shield) hi guys… please don't kill me. I'm sooooooooooo sorry for not updating sooner. I really have no excuse but the fact that I had a major writers block on this story and I've also started a story of my own which has been taking up a lot of my time. Don't worry though; I have absolutely no plans on stopping what so ever.**

**I also have started another fanfic called demigod facebook. I will be updating that on Fridays and this on Tuesdays only from now on (sorry guys).**

**So nothing in this context has changed over the time I was gone. RR still owns PJO and HoO, though it was on my birthday list but I didn't get it.**

**This chapter is dedicated to ****IamTiffanyDaughterofHermes**** who was the first to get the question right.**

* * *

"**I Play Dodgeball with Cannibals," **Zeus starts.

"This can't be good." Poseidon mutters.

**My day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.**

**See, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on beanbag chairs instead of at desks, and we don't get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert T-shirts to work.**

Athena's face is morphed into that of pure horror. "What kind of school is that?" She asked horrified.

**That's all cool with me. I mean, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I'd never done that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing about Meriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren't always ... well, bright.**

"Well that makes sense. Who expects the kids to be bright if the teachers aren't?" Athena once again comments.

**Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called **_**Lord of the Flies, **_**where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho.**

**So for our final exam, our teachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what would happen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game.**

"How civilized." Artemis says while her voice oozes sarcasm.

"I know right. Hermes and I were playing a full on tackle game with some of the minor gods earlier in the week." Apollo says not picking up on Artemis' sarcasm.

"Yeah, it was really fun, and when we won" Hermes adds gesturing to him and Apollo. "We got to pull some pranks on the losers."

Artemis simply rolls her eyes at the two.

**The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most of those activities.**

Piper clenches her fist and glares at nothing in particular. "I hate bullies."She mutters under her breath and Jason decides to grab her hand comfortingly.

**Sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy black hair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see how little he cared about his family's money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he'd taken his daddy's Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.**

The males in the room all start to laugh while the females roll their eyes.

"That actually sounds a lot like hoe Ares drives." Hera says thinking about it.

"That makes sense. I've pulled more than one slow down for children sign out of his motorcycle's engine."

Everyone in the throne room except for Ares laughs at this. Ares simply glares at Hephaestus.

**Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friend Tyson.**

**Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep. As near as my mom and I could figure, he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so ... different."**

**He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and was scared of just about everything, including his own reflection.**

Annabeth smiles after hearing about Tyson, but then her smile slowly fades.

"What's wrong?" Grover asks her without gaining anyone's attention.

"Do you remember what happened in Brooklyn ten years ago?" Annabeth asks as hr response and Grover simply shivers and nods.

"Well so do I, and I didn't treat Tyson the nicest due to that."

"I'm sure he doesn't hold it against you Annabeth. Tyson loves you." Grover says and Annabeth responds with a weak smile.

**His face was kind of misshapen and brutal-looking. I couldn't tell you what color his eyes were,** **because I could never make myself look higher than his crooked teeth. His voice was deep, but he talked funny, like a much younger kid—I guess because he'd never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tattered jeans, grimy size-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flannel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York City alleyway, because that's where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd Street.**

**Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a community service project so all the students could feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn't stand Tyson. Once they discovered he was a big softie, despite his massive strength and his scary looks, they made themselves feel good by picking on him. I was pretty much his only friend, which meant he was **_**my **_**only friend.**

"Yeah just forget me and Annabeth why don't you." Grover huffs.

"Umm, I think he was talking about friends at school." Leo says and Grover blushes.

"Leo." Piper gasps. "You actually said something intelligent.

The people from the future, save Leo, all laugh while Leo scoffs and rolls his eyes. "Haha, very funny piper."

**My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren't doing enough to help him. She'd called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen. The social workers claimed Tyson didn't exist. They swore up and down that they'd visited the alley we described and couldn't find him, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don't know.**

"The mist, right?" Jason half asks while the gods and Annabeth nod.

**Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. He swatted Sloan away a little too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the little kids' tire swing.**

**"You freak!" Sloan yelled. "Why don't you go back to your cardboard box!"**

**Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his head in his hands.**

"Wimp." Ares says only to earn glares from all the goddesses in the room as well as Annabeth and Grover.

**"Take it back, Sloan!" I shouted.**

**Sloan just sneered at me. "Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have **_**friends **_**if you weren't always sticking up for that freak."**

**I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt. "He's **_**not **_**a freak. He's just..."**

**I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn't listening. He and his big ugly friends were too busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hanging around him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like, half a dozen more, and I was pretty sure I'd never seen them before.**

"Hint number one." Annabeth mutters earning a few looks.

"What was that you said Annabeth?" Demeter asks but Annabeth just shakes her head like it's not important.

**"Just wait till PE, Jackson," Sloan called. "You are **_**so **_**dead."**

**When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage. He pronounced that we'd understood **_**Lord of the Flies **_**perfectly. We all passed his course, and we should never, never grow up to be violent people.**

"If they wanted to teach children to not grow up and be violent people then why put them in situations where they will be violent and praise them for it?" Athena asks completely bewildered.

"I agree niece." Hestia responds quietly. "But we mustn't judge the mortals to harshly, they must have a reason for their words and choices."

**Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chip-toothed grin.**

**I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut butter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.**

**"I ... I am a freak?" he asked me.**

"No you're a cutie." Aphrodite squeals and once again Leo looks to Piper.

"Seriously how is it even possible the two of you are related?" Piper just shrugs motioning that she hasn't a clue.

**"No," I promised, gritting my teeth. "Matt Sloan is the freak."**

**Tyson sniffled. "You are a good friend. Miss you next year if ... if I can't ..."**

**His voice trembled. I realized he didn't know if he'd be invited back next year for the community service project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.**

"That's cruel. Tyson deserves to know what's going to happen to him." Jason says and everyone (except Dionysus who started to read his wine magazine) nods in agreement.

**"Don't worry, big guy," I managed. "Everything's going to be fine."**

**Tyson gave me such a grateful look I felt like a big liar. How could I promise a kid like him that **_**anything **_**would be fine?**

**Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeeded in making something explode, Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were way too big for the tiny vials we were supposed to use. He accidentally knocked a tray of chemicals off the counter and made an orange mushroom cloud in the trash can.**

**After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praised Tyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who'd ever aced her exam in under thirty seconds.**

"That's acing a test. How horrible. The education system now a day's…" Athena starts ranting and Poseidon leans over towards Zeus.

"Quick, start reading before she puts everyone to sleep." Zeus quickly nods and continues reading.

**I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. I couldn't stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn't shake the memory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.**

**In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps, I opened my notebook and stared at the photo inside—my friend Annabeth** **on vacation in Washington, D.C. **

"Eeeeeeeeeeek!" Aphrodite squeals and Athena looks at Annabeth.

"Why does he have a picture of you in his note book?"

"I'm sure it will explain in the book, mom." Annabeth replies.

**She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bandanna. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place.**

**See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she's always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She's weird that way.**

"Weird?" Annabeth says raising her eyebrows.

**She'd e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I'd look at it just to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn't just been my imagination.**

**I wished Annabeth were here. She'd know what to make of my dream. I'd never admit it to her, but she was smarter than me,**

Annabeth grins. . .

**even if she was annoying sometimes.**

. . . And then frowns while everyone laughs.

**I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of the rings.**

**"Hey!" I protested.**

**Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is **_**not **_**your—"**

**"Give it back!" My ears felt hot.**

Just like how Annabeth's entire face is.

**Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads. They were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupid HI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must've had a weird sense of humor, too, because they'd all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOE BOB. No human beings had names like that.**

"Hint number two." Annabeth says earning even more looks her way.

**"These guys are moving here next year," Sloan bragged, like that was supposed to scare me. "I bet they can **_**pay **_**the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend."**

**"He's **_**not **_**retarded." I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.**

**"You're such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."**

"He better not." Poseidon growls.

"Yes, I'd rather not see my dear nephew for quite a few years. I just know that he'd annoy me every chance he'd get." Hades says rolling his eyes.

**His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict orders from Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no matter how obnoxious they were. I had to save my fighting for monsters.**

**Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only knew who I really was ...**

**The bell rang.**

**As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"**

**I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any attention. Like any girl at Meriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name.**

"Yeah," Grover says smiling. "Nobody would call his name."

Annabeth smiles at him and everyone else looks at the two weirdly.

**Before I had time to consider whether or not I'd been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed for the gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us a free-for-all dodgeball game, and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.**

**The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.**

"I would pay to see that." Apollo laughs and Hermes grins mischievously.

"How much?"

**I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn't want to deal with Sloan. I was about to leave when Tyson called, "Percy?"**

**He hadn't changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes. "Will you ... uh ..."**

**"Oh. Yeah." I tried not to sound aggravated about it. "Yeah, sure, man."**

**Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kind of awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it's because he's completely hairy and he's got weird scars on his back that I've never had the courage to ask him about.**

"Poor Tyson." Annabeth mutters remembering about the sphinx.

**Anyway, I'd learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he'd get upset and start ripping the doors off lockers.**

**When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading **_**Sports Illustrated. **_**Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. He reminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood—which was a shriveled-up mummy—except Coach Nunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke.**

Apollo frowns. '_My poor, poor oracle.'_

**Well, at least not that I'd observed.**

**Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"**

**"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Mm-hmm."**

**Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team's captain, but it didn't matter who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan's side. So did the big group of visitors.**

"Because that's so fair." Piper says sarcastically.

**On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and a half dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would've been okay with just Tyson—he was worth half a team all by himself—but the visitors on Sloan's team were almost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.**

"Hint number three." Annabeth says rolling her eyes.

**Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.**

**"Scared," Tyson mumbled. "Smell funny."**

**I looked at him. "What smells funny?" Because I didn't figure he was talking about himself.**

**"Them." Tyson pointed at Sloan's new friends. "Smell funny."**

"Hint number four."

"What's with all the hints?" Apollo asks Annabeth but she doesn't answer and motions for Zeus to continue.

**The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was slaughter time. I couldn't help wondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed kids raw meat and beat them with sticks.**

"Hint number-"

"We get it, hint number five."

"Shut up Leo."

**Sloan blew the coach's whistle and the game began. Sloan's team ran for the center line. On my side, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably "I have to go potty!" and ran for the exit. Corey Bailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best to cower in fear and not look like targets.**

**"Tyson," I said. "Let's g—"**

**A ball slammed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other team exploded in laughter.**

"How's that funny. My son gets hurt and people laugh. What is wrong with mortals these days?" Poseidon says completely enraged.

"Would you let me read?" Zeus says finally getting aggravated from all of the interruptions.

**My eyesight was fuzzy. I felt like I'd just gotten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla. I couldn't believe anybody could throw that hard.**

**Tyson yelled, "Percy, duck!"**

**I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.**

_**Whooom!**_

**It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.**

"No! Not the Computer geek." Hermes says dramatically earning a lot of strange looks.

"What, I did create the internet."

**"Hey!" I yelled at Sloan's team. "You could kill somebody!"**

**The visitor named Joe Bob grinned at me evilly. Somehow, he looked a lot bigger now ... even taller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. "I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!"**

"They're monsters." Leo says finally understanding.

"Yeah, that's why Annabeth was saying hint number one, hint number two…" Piper says.

"You didn't figure it out?" Annabeth asks while Leo blushes and all the male gods wisely stay quiet about the fact that they had no idea as well.

**The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. Nobody called me Perseus except those who knew my true identity. Friends ... and enemies.**

**What had Tyson said? **_**They smell funny.**_

**Monsters.**

"And he finally gets it." Annabeth sighs.

**All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattooed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.**

**Matt Sloan dropped his ball. "Whoa! You're not from Detroit! Who …"**

"No shit Sherlock." Annabeth says earning a few looks.

"What, Thalia helped raise me remember."

**The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant named Marrow Sucker threw a ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was about to leave and hit the door, slamming it shut like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on it desperately but it wouldn't budge.**

**"Let them go!" I yelled at the giants.**

**The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tattoo on his biceps that said**_**: JBluvs Babycakes. **_**"And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren't just playing for your death. We want lunch!"**

"I wonder how we taste to monsters." Leo says curiously.

"Well," Piper says thinking about it. "Whatever we taste like it's obviously good with salsa."

The trio of new demigods laugh at that while everyone stares at them confusedly.

**He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line—but these balls weren't made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like riffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must've been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.**

**"Coach!" I yelled.**

**Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn't let on. That's the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearance of monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybe the coach saw a few eighth graders pounding the younger kids like usual. Maybe the other kids saw Matt Sloan's thugs getting ready to toss Molotov cock tails around. (It wouldn't have been the first time.) At any rate, I was pretty sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eating bloodthirsty monsters.**

**"Yeah. Mm-hmm," Coach muttered. "Play nice."**

"And I thought our coach was bad." Leo mutters and Grover rolls his eyes.

"Gleeson's a good protector and a great fighter." Annabeth nods in agreement.

"geez, I was just joking."

**And he went back to his magazine.**

**The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past my shoulder.**

**"Corey!" I screamed.**

"Save the computer geek!"

**Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds.**

**"Run!" I told my teammates. "The other exit!"**

**They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob's hand, that door also slammed shut.**

**"No one leaves unless you're out!" Joe Bob roared. "And you're not out until we eat you!"**

**He launched his own fireball. My teammates scattered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.**

**I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gym shorts.**

"He sleeps with the thing but he doesn't have it now." Demeter says rolling her eyes.

**I **_**had **_**no pockets. Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker room door was sealed. I was completely defenseless.**

**Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosion still blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tie-dyed T-shirt peppered with sizzling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaring down at me.**

**"Flesh!" they bellowed. "Hero flesh for lunch!" They both took aim.**

**"Percy needs help!" Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.**

Leo, Apollo and Hermes snort at that while everyone just looks at them confusedly.

**"Tyson!" I screamed, but it was too late.**

**Both balls slammed into him**

At this the three snort again and try to contain their laughter.

"What's so funny?" Artemis asks but Apollo just shakes his head and motions for Zeus to continue.

**... but no ... he'd caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsy he knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught two fiery metal balls speeding toward him at a zillion miles an hour.**

At this Leo, Apollo and Hermes burst out laughing no longer able to hold in their laughter.

"What is it?" Hera asks getting annoyed.

"Two fiery metal balls." Leo chokes out while laughing. Everyone else other then the three rool their eyes and scrunch up their faces.

"Perv." Piper says while slapping Leo on the back of the head.

**He sent them hurtling back toward their surprised owners, who screamed, "BAAAAAD!" as the bronze spheres exploded against their chests.**

**The giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame—a sure sign they were monsters, all right. Monsters don't die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight.**

"That's true; imagine if we had to get rid of all the bodies after we killed them." Jason says nodding.

"Dude, you made it sound like you're an assassin or something."

"Leo,"

"Yes beauty queen."

"Shut up."

**"My brothers!" Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his **_**Babycakes **_**tattoo rippled. "You will pay for their destruction!"**

**"Tyson!" I said. "Look out!"**

**Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley's head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM!**

**Kids were running around screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Others were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.**

Leo, Apollo and Hermes laugh once again at that while Artemis hits Apollo and Hermes, and Piper hits Leo.

**Coach Nunley still wasn't seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine.**

"Wow, he sounds like a deaf Dionysus." Hermes says.

Dionysus ignores them and simply keeps his eyes on the magazine.

**Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The head master, the police, somebody would come help us.**

**"Victory will be ours!" roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. "We will feast on your bones!"**

**I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously, but before I could, he hefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead.**

Poseidon's eyes shoot out of his head, scared for his sons life.

**I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn't deflect all those balls at once. His hands **_**had **_**to be seriously burned from blocking the first volley. Without my sword ...**

**I had a crazy idea.**

**I ran toward the locker room.**

**"Move!" I told my teammates. "Away from the door."**

**I hear explosions behind me. Tyson had batted two of the balls back toward their owners and blasted them to ashes.**

**That left two giants still standing.**

**A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—then dove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.**

**Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys' locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion, so I wasn't surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge **_**WHOOOOOOOM!**_

All of the girls in the room scrunch up their faces in disgust.

**The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic sup porters, and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym.**

"That is disgusting." Piper says through her grimace of disgust .

**I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the last giant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tyson was turning to face him.**

**"No!" I yelled.**

**The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. I didn't see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.**

**"Well!" Joe Bob gloated. "I'm the last one standing! I'll have enough meat to bring Babycakes a doggie bag!"**

**He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.**

**"Stop!" I yelled. "It's me you want!"**

Annabeth visibly face palmed there.

**The giant grinned. "You wish to die first, young hero?"**

**I had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere.**

**Then I spotted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant's feet. If I could only get there... I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.**

"He will not die." Poseidon says fiercely before thinking better and looking straight at Annabeth. "right?"

**The giant laughed. "My lunch approaches." He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.**

"Yippee." Dionysus says happily and everyone turns to him with looks of disbelief, anger, and many more emotions on their faces.

"What?" He says looking up from his magazine. "Red merlot is on sale for half price."

**Suddenly the giant's body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Right where his belly button should've been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn—no, not a horn—the glowing tip of a blade.**

"Wait, what?" Leo asks voicing everyone's (except for Annabeth's) thoughts.

**The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind.**

**He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to make Babycakes pretty upset.**

"He almost dies and that's what he thinks of?"Demeter says, quite shocked.

**Standing in the smoke was my friend Annabeth. **

Queue looks to said demigod.

**Her face was grimy and scratched. **

Queue looks from said demigod's mother to said demigod's face.

**She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she'd just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.**

"Not ghosts." Annabeth whispers. "Old memories."

**Matt Sloan, who'd been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. He blinked at Annabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture. "That's the girl ... That's the girl—"**

**Annabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat.**

The room goes completely silent.

"Whoop, go Annabeth!" Leo, Apollo and Hermes scream.

"Yes violence." Ares yells.

"Eeeeeeeeeeek she sooooooooooo did it 'cuz she looooooooooooves him." You can guess who said that.

"A fighting spirit that hates certain males. You would do good in the hunt." Again, I don't really have to say who said that.

Annabeth just sits there watching everyone argue about how awesome (or un awesome in Hera's case) she was in the book.

**"And **_**you," **_**she told him, "lay off my friend."**

**The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. I heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.**

**"Annabeth ..." I stammered. "How did you ... how long have you ..."**

**"Pretty much all morning." She sheathed her bronze knife. "I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone."**

Leo and Grover start laughing while Annabeth's face starts to heat up.

"Shut up." She mutters weakly.

**"The shadow I saw this morning—that was—" My face felt hot. "Oh my gods, you were looking in my bed room window?"**

"At this Piper, Jason, and all the male gods start laughing while the goddesses roll their eyes (or in Athena's case, look at their daughter like _'were you out of your mind?'_)

**"There's no time to explain!" she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself. "I just didn't want to—"**

**"There!" a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.**

**"Meet me outside," Annabeth told me. "And him." She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn't quite understand. "You'd better bring him."**

"What? But I thought you liked Tyson?" Piper asks looking confused.

"I do…now, I just didn't back then." Annabeth says.

"Why didn't you?" Jason asks.

Grover and Annabeth both share a look and shiver before asking Zeus to continue.

_**"What?"**_

**"No time!" she said. "Hurry!"**

**She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantly vanished.**

**That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.**

**"Percy Jackson?" Mr. Bonsai said. "What ... how ..."**

**Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."**

**Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!"**

"Why do I have a feeling the coach won't be much help." Poseidon sighs.

**Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck—he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."**

"I knew it."

"Surprising, you actually know something."

"Yeah yeah, whatever owl head."

**The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell them the truth.**

**I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.**

"That's it for the chapter." Zeus says holding up the book. "Poseidon, it's your turn." Poseidon simply nods taking the book and opens it up to the right page.

**"We Hail the Taxi of Eternal Torment,"** Poseidon reads.

* * *

**So that's it for this chapter. I hope you guys liked it and again I'm so sorry for not updating sooner. Now, here's this chapters question.**

**What is the drink that Percy and Annabeth have when they are sailing through the sea of monsters on a life raft?**

**So that's the question. Again I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and that you all have a super, kick buttin', awesome day. Bye guys.**


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